Welcome to the Ghost Net.SUPER ADVANCED ALIENS FOUND NEAR THE EAGLE NEBULA!.

::Karlos Lytchtenfeld:RNC::

It had to happen sooner or later.

So far, we Terragens have been very lucky, in that all of the xenosophonts we have come across have been, for the most part, technologically inferior, or at most, at about our level.

Now, however, it seems we've come across somebody more advanced than we are. Not just a little more advanced...these xenosophonts are a LOT MORE advanced.

According to reports from our REALNEWS COOPERATIVE correspondents in the Trifid Nebula region, a ship just arrived there after a routine survey near the Eagle Nebula. That ship, the MINU QUERETANIOS, was quickly hustled into quarantine and its crew and A.I. interrogated for several days.

The reason for all this? Apparently, the MINU QUERETANIOS had come into contact with a highly advanced alien spacecraft out there, and the powers-that-be wanted to keep the whole thing contained. The highly secret Special Programs Section of the Eden Institute of Xenoscience took charge of the "investigation," even going so far as to tell the crew they had actually witnessed a test of some highly classified military spacecraft prototype, and that they should never talk about what they had seen to anyone.

Fortunately for the truth, not all of the crew was intimidated into silence. Speaking on condition of anonymity, several crew members spoke with RNC journalists after their release from custody. They told of a huge ship, traveling at extremely high velocities, that emerged from an unexplained flash of light and radiation. This mysterious ship was immune to the scanning equipment aboard the MINU QUERETANIOS, reflecting back all attempts to probe the intruder's interior. Although the mysterious spacecraft seemed to ignore the survey ship for several days, conducting whatever mysterious tasks it had been assigned, when it changed course to intercept the MINU QUERETANIOS and her crew, it leapt across the space between them at about 99.998% of lightspeed. What's more, it came to a complete stop about three and one-half light-minutes from the survey ship without any hint of deceleration. It just stopped.

Amazing as all this sounds, there was more to come. After coming to an abrupt halt, the alien ship sat quietly for almost seventeen minutes. Then, as the shocked crew watched, the video monitors aboard the MINU QUERETARIOS came alive with the image of three of the alien ship's crew. According to one of the crew members, the aliens looked like nothing any of the crew had ever seen or heard of before. [Checking the EG on the trip back to Trifid Station, they couldn't find any known clade or xenosophont whose description matched what they had seen.] The aliens looked straight into the camera (or whatever they use), and then the one in the middle said "Welcome to Sector 137. If you come in peace, then continue in peace. If your intentions are otherwise, you will be prevented from carrying them out." Incredibly, this message was spoken in FLUENT ANGLIC! Somehow, these aliens had learned to speak Anglic in only a few minutes, at most. When the crew had recovered from its shock and began asking questions, the aliens calmy refused to answer. A few minutes later, the alien transmission ended, and the huge alien ship sped away, again at near-lightspeed, without any hint of acceleration. One minute it was dead in space, the next it was traveling at more than 99% of the speed of light. A few hours later, the alien craft disappeared into another flash of light.

In what might be the most disturbing aspect of the encounter, the ship's A.I. later found, during a routine self-diagnostic check, that all of its memories had somehow been copied (presumably by the aliens) and that a set of unknown data files had somehow been implanted in the A.I.'s primary memory core. The A.I. reported that it had no knowledge of either the copying or the secreted data files until long after the aliens had departed.

The RNC correspondents at the scene then interviewed Dr. Ross H. Hatsumoto, a leading expert on spacecraft design, who lived nearby. "From the accounts of the crew," Dr. Hatsumoto began, "it appears the unidentified spacecraft used some sort of reactionless propulsion system. Moreover, from the description of its flight characteristics, it would appear the crew of that vehicle have somehow learned to shield themselves from the effects of inertia. All in all, it seems likely that these xenosophonts are much more advanced than any civilization we Terragens have ever encountered." When asked how advanced these aliens might be, Dr. Hatsumoto replied, "There's really no way of telling. They could be only a few centuries ahead of us, a million years, or even one or two billion years more advanced than we are." Asked about the possible significance of the encounter's location, Dr. Hatsumoto was quiet for a moment, then answered "I can't say for sure that there is any significance at all to where this occurred. However," he paused to swallow and catch his breath, "there have long been stories... little more than rumors, really...that the Eagle Nebula is some sort of a staging area for the so-called 'Dawn Hunters.' Perhaps those stories might have some basis in fact after all." Unable to believe what they had just heard, the journalists asked Dr. Hatsumoto if the MINU QUERETANIOS might have encountered one of the dreaded "Dawn Hunters." Dr, Hatsumoto closed his eyes for a moment, and shakily drank a half-full glass of water before speaking. "I cannot say with any certainty that what that ship met out there was actually a 'Dawn Hunter;' the spacecraft they encountered might have belonged to whatever race it is that built the 'Dawn Hunters.'"

If the alien spacecraft belonged to the builders of the Dawn Hunters, that might explain what they were doing in the far reaches of explored space near the Eagle Nebula. Perhaps even now, these highly advanced aliens are assembling fleets of Dawn Hunters to use against the Terragen upstarts. Even if they're not connected to the Dawn Hunters, they are still much more advanced than we Terragens, probably even more advanced than the Archai. As usual, the transapients aren't talking.

Either way, we can only hope to stay out of their way.

In an ominous post-script, all attempts to further contact the intrepid RNC correspondents or Dr. Hatsumoto at Trifid Station have been unsuccessful, with the comm-system's bland announcement that "the person you are trying to contact is not currently within my service area."

Draw your own conclusions.

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT! Below is the frantic message that led to the story you've just read. It was obtained for RNC by unnamed source(s) who have requested and been granted total anonymity, and is presented in its original form to our readers as evidence of an unreported event of potentially great significance.